Oxford kids are where they belong: in the NVL

In what was de­scribed by Nau­gatuck High athletic director and Naugatuck Valley League president Tom Pompei as a “close to unanimous vote,” Ox­ford will join the NVL begin­ning with the fall season of 2014. The NVL athletic direc­tors met and voted Thursday.

The Wolverines will become the 15th school in the confer­ence.

“It seems like this was some­thing that was meant to be,” Pompei said. “Someone made a reference to the sign that you see on Route 8 about the All-American Valley, with Ansonia, Derby, Seymour, Naugatuck, Prospect, Beacon Falls and Ox­ford.”

Pompei called Oxford “a nat­ural fit. They are part of the Valley. They have natural geo­graphic rivals. It is a smaller school that is strong and grow­ing.”

The NVL will now break into three divisions. Here is how the schools will line up:

Division A: Ansonia, Derby, Oxford, St. Paul, Seymour.

Division B: Crosby, Holy Cross, Kennedy, Sacred Heart, Wilby.

Division C: Naugatuck, Tor­rington, Watertown, Wolcott, Woodland.

The divisions do not yet have names.

“That is for the next meet­ing,” Pompei said. “We’ve had very preliminary talks on that.”

Pompei said that the popular NVL championship tourna­ments will continue, but that formats are still being ironed out to determine how teams qualify for tourney play.

“It could be the division win­ners, plus the schools with the next five best records,” he said, “or the two top teams from each division, with the next two best records. That is still being discussed.”

The NVL championship foot­ball game is in jeopardy of be­ing eliminated, however. Pompei said that a football de­cision will be announced soon.

Oxford School Superinten­dent Timothy F. Connellan not­ed that the application process to the NVL began well before he became the district chief, but said, “The feeling was that Oxford is a unique part of the Valley. It wasn’t that we didn’t want to participate in the South-West Conference, but that we would be more appro­priately placed in the NVL.”

Oxford’s current high school population is 595 students. Only Derby, Sacred Heart and St. Paul have smaller enrollments.

Oxford is “more comparable in size and proximity” to NVL schools, added Connellan, with natural rivalries already in place with Seymour and other lower Valley schools.

“When they looked at the pros and cons, the decision was made by the (school) board to go in this direction,” Connellan said. “It is in the best interest of students and families.”

The final divisional structure in the new NVL is based on school size, location, natural ri­valries and competitive bal­ance.

“They were determined by size, more or less,” Pompei said, “but a bunch of factors were considered.”

The Waterbury city schools wished to maintain city cham­pionship possibilities.

“They are excited that the city championships remain as is,” Pompei said of the city divi­sion, known at the moment as Division B. “It is important to the city schools. This makes it clean for them to be in one divi­sion.”

Division A brings together schools with similar enrollment numbers and, to a large extent, shared borders. Division C groups the larger of the re­maining schools.

“Some of us are really excit­ed about three divisions,” Pom­pei said. “The Valley schools are thrilled to have Oxford in the mix, and we have main­tained the rivalries that are in the NVL right now.

“All the schools that make up the NVL know each other well, and we have a lot of nice rival­ries. Oxford may have been missing that piece. Now I think they can develop rivalries that will generate community inter­est.”

The ever-evolving Naugatuck Valley League must now find a way to take 15 parts and fit them together into one work­able athletic conference. It won’t be easy. There’s no doubt some athletic directors and coaches will howl from time to time.

But know this: Oxford kids are Valley kids, and the Valley is where they belong.

About the author

Joe Palladino is a life-long Waterbury resident. He has worked in the newspaper business for the past 25 years, for the last nine with the Republican-American, and the past six years he has been the local sports columnist.

One thought on “Oxford kids are where they belong: in the NVL”

The only thing I disagree with is the statement that, “the final divisional structure in the NVL is based on school size, LOCATION, natural rivalries and competitive balance”. My question to Mr. Pompei is , how do you justify putting St. Paul’s in the Valley division if location is one of the factors in the divisional structure? Last time I looked at a map of Connecticut, Bristol was nowhere near the Lower Valley. It would have made more sense, financially, to put Woodland in that division. The most sensible three division makeup would have been; Ansonia, Derby, Seymour, Woodland and Oxford in the Lower Valley Division; Crosby, Wilby, Kennedy, Sacred Heart and Holy Cross in the City Division and Naugatuck, Watertown, Wolcott, Torrington and St. Paul’s in the Upper Valley division.